COLLABORATION WEBS: WHAT ARE THEY AND WHERE CAN I FIND THEM?
Collaboration webs are internet sites that let you talk to several people, share information or files and edit together. You 'collaborate' together to sort out any problems you have and to discuss topics by sharing your information with others and twisting them together to create the answer you've been looking for. You may do all these on one internet page which you can access anywhere, anytime, any place, so long as you can access the internet. And this is all free, no strings attached or any other add-ons needed.
It is up to you what you do with your collaboration web. You may use it for communicating with other companies in your country or overseas. You may use it to link up with friends as a way of communication. You may talk to people in many different places about a common interest, say a series of books or maybe a line of fashion coming out. The choice is yours.
Although collaboration webs sound utterly fantastic, there are some downsides.
There is an option for people to make their group private however, if their collaboration web is public, anyone can join, friend or foe. If they are a foe, they may spam and wreck the site. They bully people around and unless you are the organiser, there is no way to get rid of them.
If you are the organiser of the web, and want to expand and upgrade your site, depending on the website, you must pay a fee. Even if you want to disable the ads, then you have to pay a small fee per month.
An example of this is if you were to go on wikispaces and become the organiser of a wikispace, then you would find that although it is free to make, to turn off ads, it is $5/month.
Some examples of collaborative webs:
CollectiveX Picture
-Created by Clarence Wooten, collectiveX's main purpose is to allow people to create social networks (their own collaborative webs inside the main collaborative web) called Groupsites to let people share information and collaborate with other groups. They want people to create links between each other and communicate using collectiveX 'They do this by combining the most useful (but not all) features of online groups and listservs (like Yahoo! Groups), collaboration software (like Sharepoint) and Social Networks (like Facebook and Linkedin).' (quoted from crunchbase.com). According to its tour, features included in its many Groupsites are
CrowdVine Logo
- Crowdvine was created in 2007 by Tony Stubblebine. To join crowdvine, you must first download software for your computer, which is a slight downfall. Depending on the version of software you download, you may have to pay a fee. This site, according to its features site, is more for for business meetings and communitcating with your collegues than social meetings. However, there is an option to link with people from Facebook.
GoingOn Logo
- GoingOn is a mix between ning, where it is free and simple to set up and kickapps, where you may interact with people from other social networks e.g. myspace. It was created by Tony Perkins.
According to its website, people can use GoingOn for education, where a teacher can interact with and keep tabs on her/his students and a student can discuss his problems with others; in Business, to publish their files on the net for everyone to see and comment on; for Entertainment to share with the world, or just your friends, your thoughts in forums, polls etc. and to upload your files to help keep everything you need for Events And Conferences.
Ning Logo
-Ning is a collaborative web more used for socialising, rather than business. Made by Marc Andreessen and Gina Bianchini, Ning's slogan is 'Create your own social network for anything' and its name means 'Peace' in Chinese. Unlike other collaborative webs and other social networking sites, Ning allows people to stylise their social network. They can choose what the heading is, the background and fonts, the footer (what is at the bottom of the page), header and sidebar texts.
Some other collaboration webs:
Haystack Logo
KickApps Logo
Me.com Logo
ONEsite Logo
Logo
Some more well known collaborative webs:
Wikipedia Logo
Wikispaces logo
Social Networking Sites* and Collaboration Webs *sites*
So you have your collaboration web, the site you come too when you first come to sign up to make a collaboration web. We'll call that the Collaboration Web *host*. This is site that hosts all the collaboration webs e.g. Wikispaces or Ning.com
The sites that YOU make that are collaboration web *sites* we'll call them.
That's where you can share documents, put up files, discuss topics etc.Social Networking Sites and Communities are similar to collaboration webs, however there are some differences. Social Networking Sites (not to be confused with Social Networks) are the main websites where you create your Communities, where you can talk to many people at once.The slight difference is that social networking sites and communites are mostly used for leisure time and socialising, while collaboration webs are used for business also.
Examples of social networking sites are:
(deviantART)
Controversy with Social Networking Sites
There are some heatly debated issues with Social Networking Sites, most of these being about privacy issues.
People can lie about virtually anything, their age, what they look like, what they like, even their name. People don't and won't know that, for example, Mary Jane Phillips, age 22 from Canada with long blond hair and green eyes is actually Gordon Brown, age 47, from Egypt with no hair and a really swelled-up eye. Networking sites don't have the power to have people prove who they are, or even tell that that person is fake. This brings danger to young teens who don't know any better about web safety, who will talk to everyone and anyone. People, like pedophiles find easy prey to girls and boys who will randomly spill out personal details to those they can trust and consider 'friends' or just people they have added as 'friends'. They think they know them really well, but really they don't, which make them open for harmful people to track them down and -well, they're finished.
Another problem is spam. When you use sites like facebook or bebo or hi5, you have an option where you invite people to join the social network you have so you can socialise with each other. The problem is, not everyone wants to join your awesome site -no offence- and probably just shove the invitation into the bin. But you may keep sending them, thinking that they just haven't replied yet.
Hi5 is even worse. The website will access the user's e-mail account (that is part of the joining process) and sends everyone in your contact list an invite to go join the website. They may do this repetitively without the user knowing, and there is not much they can do.
Collaboration Webs and Education
People believe that Collaboration Webs will impact on Education a lot. If the teacher was sick or away for a long amount of time, then she/he would be able to use a collaboration web to set up tasks for the class to do. The children can communicate with the teacher via the web. Here are some examples of how Collaboration Webs can help with different subjects:
English
The students, linking to Art may take ideas from here: http://horizons-panda-rescue-force.wikispaces.com/Panda+Logos To create their own logo to represent pandas and their extinction. They may also create advertisements on pandas, telling the world about them. This also links to Art and Social Studies, as Social Studies Deal with the world today and society and the advertisement is telling the world about them. An example: *uncreated page* To join in with Art also, they could create a picture book about pandas. ALL OF THIS WOULD BE SHOWN ON GOOGLE DOCS FIRST.
Art:
The teacher may ask to create posters on Pandas and use ideas from here: http://horizons-panda-rescue-force.wikispaces.com/Panda+Extinction and here: http://horizons-panda-rescue-force.wikispaces.com/Effects+of+Panda+Extinction to make some slogans to go onto the posters. They may upload them to the collaborative web and say reasons:
-why they choose the picture in the picture/why did they draw the panda like that?
-why they choose the slogan
-why they thought this was the best way to set out the poster
-why they think that pandas should be saved/why is the panda a great animal.
They may choose to also do a weekly cartoon on a Panda's adventures that they post onto the collaboration web which people will reply to.
Religious Studies:
The teacher may put up in a collaboration web discussing the topic: IS IT OK FOR PEOPLE TO KILL PANDAS? DOES THAT MAKE US HUMANS SUPERIOR TO ALL OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM? The students would write an essay/speech (to tie into English) about this and post it onto the discussion board.Example here: http://horizons-panda-rescue-force.wikispaces.com/message/list/home. People from other schools may come onto the collaboration web and retaliate/agree with them and put up their ideas up there too. The teacher/s/students may put up other topics to discuss as well. The students may use quotes from other websites, including our website (which does not have any arguments going as of yet, but may soon)'s discussion board to support their argument.
P.E.
The students may be asked to do a project over the holidays about the way a panda's legs and structure of how it moves. They must work with a partner. Since some people's partners are go away or live far away, they would use collaboration webs to share documents of what they have done, and to track the progress of one another and to ask each other questions without phoning or e-mailing their partner. If one of them needed to go to say the zoo to look out how the Red Panda moves and needed to send the clip they taped to the other person, then they could publish their video on a hosting site, say onetruemedia.com, then enbed the video onto the collaborative web like this: http://horizons-panda-rescue-force.wikispaces.com/Panda+Video
Social Studies
The teacher could ask the students to do a project about how the Panda's Extinction Would Affect the World. They could use the Collaboration Webs to gather people from other schools to share their thoughts via a video. They then could embed the videos into the collaboration web like here, so everyone could view them, without having to search for them.
Science
The teacher may put up images onto the Collaborative Web and the children could write up what they think it is.
Or maybe she could put very fine hair of say, a red panda, or a lion and they could guess what it is. She could also put a live feed into the web and people could watch live when she is dissecting and operating.Her students could ask what she is doing and she would reply, like she was in the same room as her. They could then discuss what she has done and what steps they would take to get the outcome the teacher had.
Another example is the teacher can stream a live feed or embed videos into the Collaboration Web so in the weekends, or if they are sick, her students can view when she conducts an experiment or what they missed in calss that day. This way, no-one misses out on anything. If they are studying, they can review their notes using the collaborative web. If they are studying a topic, say animal fur, the teacher can put up extra notes and tasks for them to view and do on the 'site'.
Music
The teacher, or the students even, could invite artists to go on the collaborative web. They could talk to them via the forum (or chatroom) and send them poems/songs they had made up to see what they thought of them. The teacher could have mini-challenges using the chatroom/forum that would be focused around making up songs/poems etc. about several different topics e.g.
-About an animal
(e.g. Panda
Strong Furry
Sleeping Eating Running
Eating bamboo every day.
Panda)
-About a Topic in the world
(e.g. Sung to the tune of 'Mary had a little lamb'. The hunters are going down, going down, going down. The poachers are going down, going down today. Etc. etc.)
-About an issue of the world
-About a favourite thing
Or maybe find three songs/bands that find have a similar topic like Pandas.
Technology
The teacher could ask the children to upload or put on photos of several toys based on pandas.
They could try to replicate those toys in class.
Or if maybe research a Panda's Diet, and what could be changed about it to allow, for example:
-To make them less hungry
-To give them more energy
-To allow them to move about and not be so heavy
Examples
Junior/Primary
Mostly, in the Junior and Primary schools, they would use collaboration webs as a form of publishing. They would probably treat it like an average website and the teacher would put up most of the work onto the website. This would allow for everyone in the school, and the children's parents, to view their work. Some examples of primary schools using collaboration webs are:
http://room-2.wikispaces.com/Term+1
A primary school class (I presume) using collaborative webs to record what they are doing at school for each term.
Middle/ High School
Colleges and Intermediates are also using collaborative webs for not only research and presentation, but to share information with each other, and with everyone else. They also use it for keeping track of work and what they are doing at the moment. Teacher's can post up links and announcements on the site, to help with work.
http://roomxiii.wikispaces.com/
y9dio-2.wikispaces.com
Our website focusing on the Horizon Project. We are using the collaborative web to be able to share our research and keep track of what we are doing. Teacher's can track us too, as we keep a daily blog.
Many other schools are researching the Horizon Project too, like: http://horizonproject.wikispaces.com/Mobile+Phones
Sylvsworldgirl -Editor (kind of), Head Worrier, Wikispace Organiser, Head Collaborative web video maker maker
SuperPanda -Horizons-Panda-Rescue-Force (Wikispace) Organiser, Head Panda Videoer, Head Video Finderer, Head Panda Picture Book Drawer, Head Page Stylist
IMPACT ON EDUCATION
TO SEE OUR TARGETS, GO HERE:
http://y9dio-2.wikispaces.com/Cweb3+Gp11+targetsCOLLABORATION WEBS: WHAT ARE THEY AND WHERE CAN I FIND THEM?
Collaboration webs are internet sites that let you talk to several people, share information or files and edit together. You 'collaborate' together to sort out any problems you have and to discuss topics by sharing your information with others and twisting them together to create the answer you've been looking for. You may do all these on one internet page which you can access anywhere, anytime, any place, so long as you can access the internet. And this is all free, no strings attached or any other add-ons needed.
It is up to you what you do with your collaboration web. You may use it for communicating with other companies in your country or overseas. You may use it to link up with friends as a way of communication. You may talk to people in many different places about a common interest, say a series of books or maybe a line of fashion coming out. The choice is yours.
Although collaboration webs sound utterly fantastic, there are some downsides.
There is an option for people to make their group private however, if their collaboration web is public, anyone can join, friend or foe. If they are a foe, they may spam and wreck the site. They bully people around and unless you are the organiser, there is no way to get rid of them.
If you are the organiser of the web, and want to expand and upgrade your site, depending on the website, you must pay a fee. Even if you want to disable the ads, then you have to pay a small fee per month.
An example of this is if you were to go on wikispaces and become the organiser of a wikispace, then you would find that although it is free to make, to turn off ads, it is $5/month.
Some examples of collaborative webs:
According to its website, people can use GoingOn for education, where a teacher can interact with and keep tabs on her/his students and a student can discuss his problems with others; in Business, to publish their files on the net for everyone to see and comment on; for Entertainment to share with the world, or just your friends, your thoughts in forums, polls etc. and to upload your files to help keep everything you need for Events And Conferences.
Some other collaboration webs:
Some more well known collaborative webs:
Social Networking Sites* and Collaboration Webs *sites*
So you have your collaboration web, the site you come too when you first come to sign up to make a collaboration web. We'll call that the Collaboration Web *host*. This is site that hosts all the collaboration webs e.g. Wikispaces or Ning.com
The sites that YOU make that are collaboration web *sites* we'll call them.
That's where you can share documents, put up files, discuss topics etc.Social Networking Sites and Communities are similar to collaboration webs, however there are some differences. Social Networking Sites (not to be confused with Social Networks) are the main websites where you create your Communities, where you can talk to many people at once.The slight difference is that social networking sites and communites are mostly used for leisure time and socialising, while collaboration webs are used for business also.Examples of social networking sites are:
Controversy with Social Networking Sites
There are some heatly debated issues with Social Networking Sites, most of these being about privacy issues.People can lie about virtually anything, their age, what they look like, what they like, even their name. People don't and won't know that, for example, Mary Jane Phillips, age 22 from Canada with long blond hair and green eyes is actually Gordon Brown, age 47, from Egypt with no hair and a really swelled-up eye. Networking sites don't have the power to have people prove who they are, or even tell that that person is fake. This brings danger to young teens who don't know any better about web safety, who will talk to everyone and anyone. People, like pedophiles find easy prey to girls and boys who will randomly spill out personal details to those they can trust and consider 'friends' or just people they have added as 'friends'. They think they know them really well, but really they don't, which make them open for harmful people to track them down and -well, they're finished.
Another problem is spam. When you use sites like facebook or bebo or hi5, you have an option where you invite people to join the social network you have so you can socialise with each other. The problem is, not everyone wants to join your awesome site -no offence- and probably just shove the invitation into the bin. But you may keep sending them, thinking that they just haven't replied yet.
Hi5 is even worse. The website will access the user's e-mail account (that is part of the joining process) and sends everyone in your contact list an invite to go join the website. They may do this repetitively without the user knowing, and there is not much they can do.
Collaboration Webs and Education
People believe that Collaboration Webs will impact on Education a lot. If the teacher was sick or away for a long amount of time, then she/he would be able to use a collaboration web to set up tasks for the class to do. The children can communicate with the teacher via the web. Here are some examples of how Collaboration Webs can help with different subjects:English
The students, linking to Art may take ideas from here: http://horizons-panda-rescue-force.wikispaces.com/Panda+Logos To create their own logo to represent pandas and their extinction. They may also create advertisements on pandas, telling the world about them. This also links to Art and Social Studies, as Social Studies Deal with the world today and society and the advertisement is telling the world about them. An example: *uncreated page* To join in with Art also, they could create a picture book about pandas. ALL OF THIS WOULD BE SHOWN ON GOOGLE DOCS FIRST.Art:
The teacher may ask to create posters on Pandas and use ideas from here:http://horizons-panda-rescue-force.wikispaces.com/Panda+Extinction and here:
http://horizons-panda-rescue-force.wikispaces.com/Effects+of+Panda+Extinction to make some slogans to go onto the posters. They may upload them to the collaborative web and say reasons:
-why they choose the picture in the picture/why did they draw the panda like that?
-why they choose the slogan
-why they thought this was the best way to set out the poster
-why they think that pandas should be saved/why is the panda a great animal.
They may choose to also do a weekly cartoon on a Panda's adventures that they post onto the collaboration web which people will reply to.
Religious Studies:
The teacher may put up in a collaboration web discussing the topic: IS IT OK FOR PEOPLE TO KILL PANDAS? DOES THAT MAKE US HUMANS SUPERIOR TO ALL OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM? The students would write an essay/speech (to tie into English) about this and post it onto the discussion board.Example here: http://horizons-panda-rescue-force.wikispaces.com/message/list/home. People from other schools may come onto the collaboration web and retaliate/agree with them and put up their ideas up there too. The teacher/s/students may put up other topics to discuss as well. The students may use quotes from other websites, including our website (which does not have any arguments going as of yet, but may soon)'s discussion board to support their argument.P.E.
The students may be asked to do a project over the holidays about the way a panda's legs and structure of how it moves. They must work with a partner. Since some people's partners are go away or live far away, they would use collaboration webs to share documents of what they have done, and to track the progress of one another and to ask each other questions without phoning or e-mailing their partner. If one of them needed to go to say the zoo to look out how the Red Panda moves and needed to send the clip they taped to the other person, then they could publish their video on a hosting site, say onetruemedia.com, then enbed the video onto the collaborative web like this:http://horizons-panda-rescue-force.wikispaces.com/Panda+Video
Social Studies
The teacher could ask the students to do a project about how the Panda's Extinction Would Affect the World. They could use the Collaboration Webs to gather people from other schools to share their thoughts via a video. They then could embed the videos into the collaboration web like here, so everyone could view them, without having to search for them.Science
The teacher may put up images onto the Collaborative Web and the children could write up what they think it is.Or maybe she could put very fine hair of say, a red panda, or a lion and they could guess what it is. She could also put a live feed into the web and people could watch live when she is dissecting and operating.Her students could ask what she is doing and she would reply, like she was in the same room as her. They could then discuss what she has done and what steps they would take to get the outcome the teacher had.
Another example is the teacher can stream a live feed or embed videos into the Collaboration Web so in the weekends, or if they are sick, her students can view when she conducts an experiment or what they missed in calss that day. This way, no-one misses out on anything. If they are studying, they can review their notes using the collaborative web. If they are studying a topic, say animal fur, the teacher can put up extra notes and tasks for them to view and do on the 'site'.
Music
The teacher, or the students even, could invite artists to go on the collaborative web. They could talk to them via the forum (or chatroom) and send them poems/songs they had made up to see what they thought of them. The teacher could have mini-challenges using the chatroom/forum that would be focused around making up songs/poems etc. about several different topics e.g.-About an animal
(e.g. Panda
Strong Furry
Sleeping Eating Running
Eating bamboo every day.
Panda)
-About a Topic in the world
(e.g. Sung to the tune of 'Mary had a little lamb'. The hunters are going down, going down, going down. The poachers are going down, going down today. Etc. etc.)
-About an issue of the world
-About a favourite thing
Or maybe find three songs/bands that find have a similar topic like Pandas.
Technology
The teacher could ask the children to upload or put on photos of several toys based on pandas.They could try to replicate those toys in class.
Or if maybe research a Panda's Diet, and what could be changed about it to allow, for example:
-To make them less hungry
-To give them more energy
-To allow them to move about and not be so heavy
Examples
Junior/Primary
Mostly, in the Junior and Primary schools, they would use collaboration webs as a form of publishing. They would probably treat it like an average website and the teacher would put up most of the work onto the website. This would allow for everyone in the school, and the children's parents, to view their work. Some examples of primary schools using collaboration webs are:http://communityrights.wikispaces.com/
A class of primary school students using collaborative webs to express their views on Human Rights.
http://room-2.wikispaces.com/Term+1
A primary school class (I presume) using collaborative webs to record what they are doing at school for each term.
Middle/ High School
Colleges and Intermediates are also using collaborative webs for not only research and presentation, but to share information with each other, and with everyone else. They also use it for keeping track of work and what they are doing at the moment. Teacher's can post up links and announcements on the site, to help with work.http://roomxiii.wikispaces.com/
y9dio-2.wikispaces.com
Our website focusing on the Horizon Project. We are using the collaborative web to be able to share our research and keep track of what we are doing. Teacher's can track us too, as we keep a daily blog.
Many other schools are researching the Horizon Project too, like:
http://horizonproject.wikispaces.com/Mobile+Phones
Bibliography:
www.crunchbase.com/ninghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ning
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_servicehttp://about.ning.com/
http://www.cerado.com/download/Cerado-Haystack-Executive-Briefing-Social-Networking-for-Businesses-and-Associations.pdf
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/goingon
http://www.goingon.com/goingon/biography
http://wikis.pepperdine.edu/display/GSBME/Collaboration+Webs+in+Higher+Ed
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/collectivex
http://www.techcrunch.com/wp-content/wlsn_comparison_chart.html
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f00/web3/kennedy3.htmlnationalzoo.si.edu/Support/GPConservationFund/
http://www.worldwildlife.org/home.html
http://mammals.suite101.com/article.cfm/facts_on_the_giant_panda
communityrights.wikispaces.com
//y9dio-2.wikispaces.com
http://bpujos.free.fr/PagesPhotos/Photos/Autres/world_map.GIF
Our Video:
Meet the Team:
Sylvsworldgirl -Editor (kind of), Head Worrier, Wikispace Organiser, Head Col laborative web video maker maker
SuperPanda -Horizons-Panda-Rescue-Force (Wikispace) Organiser, Head Panda Videoer, Head Video Finderer, Head Panda Picture Book Drawer, Head Page Stylist